


Freestyle

by aerialiste



Series: Galveston [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Background Sam Winchester, Canon What Canon, Charlie Bradbury & Dean Winchester Friendship, Charlie Bradbury Lives, Established Relationship, Fallen Angels, Galveston Island, Human Castiel, Implied Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon, Veterinary Medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2018-12-04 09:40:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11552499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerialiste/pseuds/aerialiste
Summary: Somehow Dean was still in Galveston, though the decision-making process that had led to this was unclear. He’d just sort of…continued not driving back to Kansas. First he stayed through New Year’s (at which point he discovered that if they split three bottles of champagne, Cas would finally get tipsy), and through his birthday, which had involved more sex and less alcohol; and then the end of the month, and the first part of February; and now he was still here, and abruptly all the Christmas stuff at Walmart had been replaced with rows and rows of seasonal purple, green, and gold, because apparently Galveston celebrated Mardi Gras like this would be its last year to do so.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ExpatGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/gifts).



> [who also made the prettiest graphics]
> 
>   

_Think of two people, living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each other’s bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love—think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them._ —Christopher Isherwood, _A Single Man_

•

Arlan’s, Dean guessed, was almost as old as Galveston itself. It had certainly survived more than one hurricane, including Ike’s twenty-foot storm surge. Everything in the store had a faint coating of gritty dust and smelled like fish. Arlan’s didn’t sell fish.

Arlan’s also marked up everything way past even the usual island grocery prices, as if they were in Honolulu rather than Galveston. Once a clerk on autopilot had accidentally rung up a jar of (already stupidly expensive) cherry jam thirty-six times. When the total bill was announced as several hundred dollars Dean hadn’t even blinked, just started to swipe his card numbly, until the customer behind him had said something.

They did have an impressive selection of $1 plastic dishware for beach dining, along with folding chairs, coolers, grass mats and other inevitable souvenir kitsch. In the parking lot, plastic owls were stationed to keep away the (completely unimpressed) seagulls. Inside, parked next to the front door, a garish red-and-yellow wheeled machine had a sign reading “Please Enjoy Our Complimentary Popcorn While You Shop,” but Dean had never once seen any actual popcorn. That might have been because he generally went to Arlan’s at night, the better to pretend he wasn’t actually there at all.

There was a perfectly normal Kroger down on Seawall but who even went there, not islanders, anyway certainly not Cas, because, like the snob he was, he shopped at the farmer’s market every Sunday and got their tortillas from the panadería. Which meant Dean was somehow stuck going to Arlan’s midweek when they ran out of half-and-half.

Which is how he found himself in the checkout line with Original Cindy on a Thursday night, squinting against the fluorescence to make sure the dairy wasn’t already past the sell-by date, a precaution you had to take with everything you bought at Arlan’s.

She nudged him amiably in the ribs, unloading her basket, as her many avocadoes rolled bumpily down the conveyer belt. “Hey, new guy. How’s Cas?”

Dean tried to find it in himself to be irritated with her, but he couldn’t really, because Cindy was staggeringly pretty, a former goddess, and rode a mint-condition Royal Enfield. He sighed internally and manned the fuck up.

“He’s—good, we’re good.” Was he new? He didn’t feel new. Dean fidgeted, trying not to stare at the gorgeous penumbra of her curly hair and mostly failing. It reminded him of a halo. “Making guacamole, I guess?”

“Annual Mardi Gras party. We already sent Cas an email but y’all should come.”

Dean had a vivid flash of Cas slouched in between Cindy and Sara on the dance floor, eyes closed, hips slipping between theirs, and fought back—whatever that feeling was. He wasn’t gonna be that jealous-drama boyfriend, he just wasn’t.

The clerk said something indistinguishable, voice bored, presumably the total, and Dean fished out a debit card from his wallet. He concentrated hard and gave Cindy the full-tilt, hundred-percent Dean Winchester grin, which he knew didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Wouldn’t miss it. Are green chile enchiladas okay? We’ll bring beer too.”

Cindy beamed back at him as the clerk counted avocadoes. “Sounds perfect.”

Dean nodded and waved, backing away and narrowly avoiding the popcorn machine as he moved toward the exit, quart of half-and-half slippery with condensation in his hand. Buy two—why didn’t he just buy two on the weekend. He’d never have to enter Arlan’s again.

•

By the time he got back, Cas was off his late shift at the shelter clinic. Dean could see the light on inside the laundry room, and despite himself started to hurry a little. He parked Baby at the end of the gravel road, left the keys hanging in the ignition and walked rapidly the rest of the way to the beach house, trying to get there in time to see—

The basement door ajar, light spilling out onto the concrete slab underneath the house, and Cas in profile, standing in front of the washer, stripping off his scrubs directly into the machine, as was his habit. He turned toward Dean, half-smiling as he dropped his lanyard onto the top of the dryer with a clatter, then rummaged in the front pockets of his scrub shirt, pulling out—various objects, Dean didn’t really want to know what, to throw into the trash can next to him. Mostly wadded-up blue nitrile gloves. Some scary-looking clumps of gauze and bandage tape. Okay that was a syringe.

At last Cas turned both pockets inside-out and pulled the shirt over his head, which was Dean’s cue to move in. “You’re back,” he said unnecessarily into Cas’s neck, his arms full of silky-warm vet tech, talking just to feel his lips move against Cas’s skin. Cas nipped at the side of Dean’s jaw, shuffling back to create enough space to kick off his running shoes, and loosen the drawstring of his scrub pants.

“Dean,” he said, and Dean wondered if he would ever stop feeling the bottom of his stomach drop out when Cas said his name that way. “Give me—wait, can you—just—”

“What, you need help getting out of those?” Dean’s desire to undress Cas after work was always at war with the appalling level of germiness spattered all over him, so he backed off a little and let Cas pull off his own scrub bottoms and boxers in one lithe movement.

“Shower,” Cas said, brooking no discussion, and Dean let himself be pulled toward it.

After making sure the water was hot, and peeling off Dean’s clothes with a practiced speed that Dean found both sexy and unsettling, Cas immediately had him pressed up against the one solid wall of the bamboo outdoor shower, kissing him in that deep, luxurious, unhurried way that made Dean feel a little hysterical inside. These moments where part of him wanted to run, untethered, even while glued to Cas’s presence.

He put both palms on Cas’s chest, not pushing, but Cas paused anyway and drew back, eyes dark and unfocused at first, then searching Dean’s.

“It’s not what,” Dean started, then stopped, then tried again. “How was work?”

At that, Cas’s eyes narrowed, because he knew perfectly well that wasn’t what Dean was thinking, and Dean knew it too, but he was going with it anyway. He bent down to pick up the bottle of body wash and motioned to Cas to turn around, then started working lather into his shoulders and neck, mostly to hear him stifle a moan. “Work was—fine. It’s not kitten season yet, so it’s mostly—mostly just, oh, do that again. Mostly just TNRs and lopping ear corners off ferals. Vaccinations. Only one euth, from a car accident—”

This time he couldn’t suppress a protracted, garbled sound and Dean smirked, digging his thumbs in harder, then soaping the back of Cas’s neck, scratching his nails across the nape. Cas reached around behind Dean with both hands and linked them somehow across the small of Dean’s back. “Keep going,” he said, while leaning into Dean and dropping his head backward onto Dean’s shoulder, making it impossible to continue. 

Dean lipped at the edge of Cas’s ear instead, moving both hands full of suds around to Cas’s chest, feeling it moving up and down rapidly, his breath coming faster as Dean lathered downward.

“You’re predictable. And terrible,” Cas said hoarsely, and Dean smiled into the skin of his shoulder.

“Maybe, but I got cream for your coffee tomorrow,” said Dean, timing this with a single slick stroke where it counted, his fist tightening around Cas’s cock, and they both shuddered.

“Well then all is forgiven,” said Cas, turning around in Dean’s arms, to which Dean objected with a click of his tongue, before Cas’s own tongue was in his mouth again and both his hands wrapped firmly around both of Dean’s. “As long as you don’t stop.”

•

Not stopping was apparently something Dean could do, when he couldn’t do anything else. Somehow, by not-stopping, he was still in Galveston, though the decision-making process that had led to this was unclear. He’d just sort of…stayed.

The days had passed without anyone commenting, as he continued not driving back to Kansas, not really thinking about it. First he stayed through New Year’s (at which point he discovered that if they split three bottles of champagne, Cas would finally get tipsy) and then through his birthday, which had involved more sex and less alcohol; and then the end of the month, and the first part of February; and now he was still here, and abruptly all the Christmas stuff at Walmart had been replaced with rows and rows of seasonal purple, green, and gold, because apparently Galveston celebrated Mardi Gras like this would be its last year to do so. Privately, Dean thought it was kind of cool.

They’d dressed and driven there at 11 pm because Cas, post-coital, suddenly needed bags of topsoil for the container garden he’d decided he wanted. As much as Dean disliked Walmart, he had a sort of credit-card fraud…situation with Home Depot, which he blamed on Sam building bookshelves for Eileen with expensive 1x12s of planed cedar or cherrywood or some shit (pine, why couldn’t he just have stuck to pine).

While Cas wrangled bags of dirt into their cart, Dean stared at the aisles of Mardi Gras bling, everything from $100 door wreaths to sequined masks to ropes and strings of gilded beads. Boxes of king cakes were stacked on pallets, with their drifts of brightly colored granulated sugar and little plastic baby Jesuses waiting to be inserted therein.

“What the hell, Cas. It’s like Mardi Gras threw up in here.”

Cas dragged the cart to an abrupt stop in front of a display of purple-green-gold colored fairy lights, and Dean sighed as Cas picked out a medium-sized box.

“Dude, we live literally on the farthest end of the island. No one’s gonna see them.”

“But we’ll see them. I might put them over the bed.”

Dean had a vision of Cas’s skin lit only by soft violet lights, and shut up.

Back in the car, he drove slowly down Seawall to their end of the island, as Cas pointed out all the RVs and krewe trailers lined up, ready for the parade on the Strand.

Dean shook his head. “We’re in fake New Orleans, man. I had no idea.”

Cas laughed softly, rolling down his window and sticking his hand out into the warm fog that was nothing like fog, more some ungodly combination of finely powdered sand and humidity, a sticky mist that came up off the surf every night and made it almost impossible to see more than twenty feet in front of the Impala. Windshield wipers were useless against it, Dean had discovered. “I’ve never actually been to the parade. You have to buy a ticket, because Galveston is still trying to revive its economy. But from Cindy and Sara’s we’ll be able to hear the music and probably see some of the krewes.”

Dean drew to a stop at a red light, concentrating on the mist outside. “You got their email, huh.”

In his peripheral vision, Cas nodded. Then, out of nowhere: “I owe you an apology for that night.”

Dean turned toward him, disbelieving, and Cas slid a hand across the seat to thread their fingers together. “When we had the fight. That was all my fault, I shouldn’t have—”

“Cas, no,” he interrupted. “If you’re gonna say you shouldn’t dance with hot chicks, the answer’s no. You got nothing to be sorry about.” He lifted Cas’s knuckles to his mouth and got in a quick kiss before the light changed and he needed his hand back. They were quiet as Dean turned right onto the road leading south toward the beach.

Cas’s voice was so low Dean almost missed it. “I should have danced with you.”

Dean suppressed a smile. “Okay, for one, I don’t really dance, even if you were wearing a pretty dress. And two, have you ever seen _Carlito’s Way_? I can appreciate how awesome you are without having to be. You know. Territorial. It’s not like I gotta pee on trees so people know you’re, you’re mine.” His voice cracked on the word. _Mine._ Fuck.

They pulled up at the end of the gravel spit and Dean turned off the Impala, leaning across impulsively and capturing Cas’s t-shirt in both hands, tugging him closer.

“But you like marking me,” Cas said, without warning, and suddenly Dean’s mouth was full of saliva and he couldn’t swallow.

“That’s different,” he said, “I’m not—that’s different.”

“Show me,” said Cas, reaching up and parting Dean’s shirt collar to sear a kiss into the base of his throat. Dean felt unmoored. Was the beginning of a relationship always like this, always so freighted and intense? He couldn’t remember. Maybe it was because they’d stalled out for so many years, pretending they were best friends. All he knew is that the briefest, most glancing touch or look from Cas could set him spinning.

“Back seat,” he said with difficulty, and Cas was out the passenger door in a flash, yanking his shirt over his head before he even had the back door open. Dean stripped off his leather jacket and flannel and dropped them in the footwell just in time, before they collided in the middle of the seat, mouths finding each other in the dark, Cas’s fingers digging into his back, then the scrape of teeth across his collarbones.

“I was thinking we should ask Charlie to drive down,” Cas breathed, before pushing him backward, shoving up his t-shirt and branding kisses across his stomach.

“Oh my god, not now, babe,” he groaned in reply, clutching a fistful of Cas’s hair and sliding down the door until he was half-lying along the seat with Cas kneeling between his legs, already painfully hard in his jeans as Cas yanked open his fly.

“No, but for Mardi Gras,” said Cas, pulling him out deftly over the top of his boxers, somehow able to multitask making social plans with making Dean lose his mind.

“Okay, fine, just—” and then Cas’s mouth was warm and tight around him and Dean felt electricity arc the length of his spine, a live wire cut and gone down, sparks skittering across wet pavement.

Cas pulled away after an interminable minute, and Dean swallowed a protest as Cas nuzzled him and stroked his fingertips along the tops of Dean’s thighs. He caught a flash in the darkness as Cas looked up at him, seeming to weigh something before he spoke.

“Is it always like this?”

Dean had to clear his throat to answer. “Is what always—you’re asking _me?_ ”

“Because you’ve had a long-term relationship, and this is really my first. I just wondered if it’s always this—all-consuming. I know the common wisdom is that things are more intense at the beginning, physically, but I didn’t expect it to be quite this—”

“—hot?” Dean finished.

“—incendiary,” amended Cas, “but yes. You’re all I think about. Which isn’t that different from the years we hunted together, I worried about you constantly, but this is—this is like being a piece of metal inexorably drawn to a magnet. It’s incessant, I think about you whether I’m with you or alone.” He pressed a kiss to the inside of Dean’s thigh and Dean twitched. “I haven’t even wanted to ask why you haven’t gone back to Kansas, mostly because I can’t stand the thought of not being able to touch you, and—”

He lowered his head again, and Dean stopped breathing for awhile, before remembering his actual goal in the whole back-seat plan. “Come here,” he managed, hauling Cas upward and kissing him quiet for a long minute before he nudged aside Cas’s ridiculously overgrown hair to bite decisively into the tenderest part of his neck, up high, just underneath the corner of his jaw. He braced Cas’s shoulders with his hands and started to suck, hard, holding him in place as a ripple shivered through him.

“People are going to see that,” Cas panted, still trembling.

“I thought that was the point,” Dean muttered, and it came out a little meaner than he meant, so he twisted them until Cas’s back was against the seat, and they were lying on their sides, which meant he could let go of Cas’s shoulders and reach inside his pants, smoothing his palm up and down the length of Cas’s erection, feeling unhinged.

“I think it’s—hang on,” he said incoherently, curling his fingers around Cas’s dick and biting down hard on one shoulder, sucking until he tasted metal under his tongue. _His._

He tried again. “I think it’s not sex, is why.”

“But it is sex,” Cas objected, struggling with his own button-fly. Dean pushed his fingers away and undid it himself, shoving Cas’s jeans down his thighs and moving forward until his hips were pressed flush against Cas’s, almost too close for him to work a hand in between them, but not completely. Cas was dripping and Dean bit back a gasp.

“Yeah, okay, god, why do you always wanna talk during—you asked why it’s like this and I’m—trying—to tell you,” Dean said, breathless between words, twisting his palm up and over the head of Cas’s cock, squeezing to pull more wetness from him. They were both shaking and Dean was already on edge. For a beat he gripped them together unmoving, and bit another hickey into the other side of Cas’s neck, soft strands of hair tangling in his mouth, resisting his efforts to spit them out. He chafed the bitten place with his teeth, just to feel Cas writhe and tighten his arms around him.

“There’s an—an urgency,” Cas said, head flung back to expose the skin of his throat, so Dean nipped again, lower down, where he could feel the pulse throb. He sucked more cautiously against the thinner skin, but Cas still practically vibrated, fingers clutching at his biceps. “Or desperation. Like I’m—about to lose you. Or I need to possess you. Even when I’m coming inside you, I want to come inside you. I—I never want you to leave.”

At this Dean gave up even pretending to be in control of the situation and let Cas do whatever he wanted, which was apparently to flip him over again onto his back, his and Cas’s hands together pulling roughly at them, the almost-too-much friction dangling him off that ledge again, their mouths just far enough apart to let Dean gulp for breath until he got out, “Please, Cas, just _—please_ —fuck—”

“This time and every time,” Cas gritted, hips driving down involuntarily into Dean’s in counterpoint to every slide upward, the slapping, messy sounds of them making Dean feel wild and hopeless, faster and faster—“I’ve got you, I’ve always got you, it’s okay— _yes_ —”

There was a stroke that was just before and then one that was somehow just after, as he filled up and crested over, coming so hard it almost hurt, turning his head to bite down hard on the muscle between Cas’s neck and shoulder, knowing he was leaving teeth marks and not caring, Cas making a feral high-pitched sound and spilling in hot pulses over their fingers, saying Dean’s name over and over, them riding it out together until their hips stilled and dammit, Cas was right, somehow he _still wanted him_ , which was completely insane, and Cas was bringing their hands, still linked, up to his mouth, kissing away the mess, laughing.

“Dude,” breathed Dean, “laughing is kind of considered bad form here.”

“I’m happy,” said Cas simply. In the dim light Dean could barely see his eyelashes fluttering closed as he licked a drip off the edge of Dean’s hand, and he was too flattened to fight it, he just let him, winded, sprawled there with his t-shirt half off, still in boots, jeans around his knees.

“Okay,” was all he could muster. And then, after a while: “It’s getting cold.” And then, after a longer while: “We could go inside and hang up those stupid lights you just had to have.” _And then get into bed and hold each other_ , he didn’t add, but he hoped Cas knew.

There was a lot he didn’t say, because he hoped Cas knew. Saying it out loud felt crazy, desperate, felt like flying apart inside. And probably Cas did know, he’d always seemed to know; but before he let him go in order to get dressed again, Dean whispered it in his ear, very quietly, just the same.


	2. Chapter 2

Cas might accuse him of being overly fussy, but Dean would be damned if he was going to this party with sub-standard enchiladas, which is why on Saturday morning he came back from Arlan’s with an entire additional bag of produce and a brand-new stainless steel baking pan (price ridiculous but unimportant). Of course, before he could do anything in the kitchen he had to fix the oven, which Cas claimed had never worked properly and which he currently used as a pantry, keeping boxes of cereal in there to combat the damp.

Dean made a face from where he was sprawled out on the floor, having pulled the drawer out and stuck his head in so he could see the components. “Looks like someone else was using it as their pantry too, babe.” He held out a little cloud of cottony fluff, thread, and grass, all artfully woven together, and Cas knelt to take it from his hands.

“That might explain where the mice came from,” he said, and Dean made a different face.

“Mice, plural?”

“Well, I thought it was just one, but it turned out to be triplets. They do sort of all look alike.”

“You had mice, and you let them stay. _Mice,_ Castiel.”

“They didn’t eat much, just a few almonds,” Cas offered, in what Dean thought was a pretty pitiful defense. “I had to foster an older cat for a while, though, and I was afraid she would catch them, so I used a humane trap to set them free in the dunes.”

Dean figured Cas knew perfectly well what else lived in the dunes, and how much it probably enjoyed plump tasty domesticated mice, but he kept that to himself. “Well, you using the oven as a frigging Habitrail might have something to do with why it doesn’t work. This pilot’s fifteen kinds of clogged.” He slid out from under to find Cas standing akimbo over him, wearing a t-shirt and boxer shorts. He swallowed. “Look, don’t be mad at me, I’m not the one housing vermin and hand-feeding them treats.”

Cas looked remorseful. “I tried, but I could never get them to come that close.”

Dean dusted off his hands, and stuck one up for Cas to grab. “You’re a weirdo, and I’ve gotta go to the hardware store.”

Cas pulled him to his feet, easily, and then the rest of the way into his arms. “Please don’t make me put on pants and go with you,” he murmured, and Dean wrapped his arms around Cas’s waist, laughing, hands sliding under Cas’s t-shirt.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. But while I’m gone, could you empty the oven?” Privately Dean had already decided to buy and install a small cabinet over the sink, for Cas’s pantry needs, so that boxes of Chex would not become mouse habitat.

“Mm-hm,” agreed Cas against the skin of his neck, moving to insert one leg between Dean’s, getting even closer. “Oven.” Dean wondered if he’d ever get used to being able to smell Cas, press his face into his hair, drown in that scent: grass clippings, burnt sugar, something citrus and bitter he’d never been able to place, overwhelmingly male.

“Okay, okay—let me go, Lothario, I’ve got enchiladas to make.”

By the time he had the oven back in business, gas streaming enthusiastically, and serrano, jalapeño and Hatch green chiles all inside it on the baking pan scorching, along with garlic cloves, Dean also had the new cabinet assembled. Cas had apparently had enough coffee to put on pants, and as he held the cabinet up at the right height, Dean hammered drywall screws into place, then nodded at him to set it down again. “This’ll be better for your stuff anyway. And no sharing.”

“Charlie texted me, she’s in Dallas,” Cas said conversationally, brushing a hand through Dean’s hair, and Dean almost dropped the electric drill into the sink.

“I’m sorry, what?”  
  
“I forwarded her Sara’s email, and she decided to come down to surprise you. But I didn’t want to surprise you too much. She’ll be here for the party, probably.”

Dean frowned so he wouldn’t smile, but not fast enough, because Cas caught him doing it. “I love you,” he said, again moving his fingers in Dean’s hair. “Let’s go to bed.”

“Are you crazy? I’m barely even started.”

The preparation was in fact going to be epic, but Dean knew his enchiladas to be well worth it. First, the scorched peppers and tomatillos went into a gallon Ziploc bag to cool, after which they were peeled and deseeded, slimily, with Dean being mindful not to touch his face or any part of his body about which he cared, or Cas’s (“that’s the kind of mistake you only make once, man”). Then everything went into Cas’s tiny Cuisinart, which took five batches because it was so small, and minced cilantro got everywhere.

Finally Dean had progressed to the stage where the corn tortillas were softening in warm oil so he could roll them without breaking them, as he crumbled queso blanco the way Cesar had shown him, pausing to shred some asiago just to give the whole thing more profile (his addition, definitely not Cesar’s). Dean finished with the cheeses, mixed together in the biggest bowl Cas had, and admired the salsa verde in its half-gallon Mason jar before greasing the new baking pan with butter. Afterward, he wrapped the pan in aluminum foil and placed it in the middle of the oven, rubbing his hands with more olive oil before adding dish soap and scrubbing aggressively, hoping that would remove the last of the capsaicin from his skin, in case Cas got frisky again.

Cas had mostly given him space and was working on a grant application for the shelter, mumbling peaceably to himself at the dining table. Dean paused and came up behind him to run both thumbs down the tendons of his neck, making Cas immediately drop his head and sigh. Dean bent and pressed a kiss to the top of his spine. He cleared his throat, aiming for casual and probably missing it by a mile.

“So what does a guy wear to a Mardi Gras party, anyway?”

“Are you saying I get to pick out your clothes?” Dean felt himself flushing, because something strange happened to his blood pressure when Cas said shit like that.

“Are you saying you want to?”

Cas very deliberately lowered the top of the computer, shutting it with a click before sliding back in his chair, surveying Dean coolly. “Are you saying you’ll actually let me?”

Dean let his eyes close for a second. “Maybe we should both assume we’re, um, saying whatever it is we’re saying. Or whatever.”

Cas looked up at him with that calculating expression, the one somehow involving his left eyebrow. “Come here, then,” he finally said, offering Dean a hand as he stood up. “Since the sacred pan of enchiladas is finally in the oven, let’s get you pretty.”

•

Getting pretty, it turned out, involved not only the selection of particular clothing but also wearing ridiculous sparkly eyeshadow, which Dean categorically refused and Cas applied anyway, mostly by holding him down, sitting in his lap and insisting that purple would bring out the green of his eyes. He wound up in his usual slightly nicer jeans and Cas’s favorite flannel shirt, the pink-and-purple plaid one he loved on Dean for some reason; but Cas took a visible pleasure in doing up the buttons, the tip of his tongue just visible in one corner of his mouth as he concentrated, until Dean kissed it back in.

“Hey, babe, do me a favor?” he asked Cas, at some point, several minutes later.

Cas pulled back and studied him, head on one side. “What is it?”

“Just don’t, like, abandon me? At the party. I mean, I’m fine with strangers, I just—these people aren’t all hunters or gods or anything, they’re, like, normal, and I—” he ground to a halt, fumbling for words. _I don’t want them to think you made a shitty choice._

Cas nodded, smoothing invisible wrinkles from Dean’s shoulders. “Of course, Dean.” He straightened Dean’s collar and Dean’s hand flew up to catch his, tangling their fingers.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he said, against Cas’s knuckles, and then Cas’s eyes went funny, wide and too bright, and there was somehow more kissing.

By the time they finally showed up, the party was in full swing. Cindy and Sara lived in a classic mint-green East End Victorian, pre-1900 storm: wrought iron half-fence around the yard and wrought-iron balconies, captain’s walk, and a wooden ship’s figurehead on the street corner—a weathered merman holding up what had maybe used to be a trident before the sea had broken it off. They’d wrapped strings of Mardi Gras lights around the tree trunks and porch columns, and Dean could see Cindy up on one of the balconies, talking animatedly with a group of people all dressed in…well, dressed in very little, as far as Dean could see. Cindy had on a silver bikini top and most people seemed to be wearing just strings of beads. Fair enough, Dean thought; it was a really warm spring.

“You came!” said Sara, opening the front door with visible delight, and accepting the six-pack of Shiner that Cas offered her, along with a kiss to the cheek. Her blue-black hair shone in the lights. “I’m so glad. Also your friend got here a while ago and—”

“ _Dean!”_ screeched Charlie, throwing herself down the front steps and crashing into him like it was some kind of trust exercise. Which, okay, it was, because Dean’s arms went around her immediately and instead of staggering backward he swung her in a half-circle, laughing and keeping her feet off the ground.

He was about to set her down and tell her to behave when she caught sight of his eyeshadow and let out a whistle, brushing one finger along it and grinning. “And _that’s_ something I never in a gabillion years thought I’d see. Can I take a picture for Sam?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Dean muttered, setting her down and squeezing her hand, once, to let her know they were still cool. “And no.”

“Having a boyfriend is obviously really good for you, dude,” Charlie continued artlessly, dropping her head on Dean’s shoulder and then all but hauling him inside by one arm. “And I say this as a relationship agnostic. It’s just great to see you so…great, you know?”

Dean let her pull him into the kitchen and put a cold IPA into his hand (none of that artisanal seasonal wheat-and-fruit nonsense). Sara was already serving up enchiladas with a spatula, while Cas nestled the bottles of Shiner into an open cooler filled with ice.

He tugged on Charlie’s hand and led her over to where Cas stood.

“So you guys have met before,” he began, feeling absurdly formal, but it turned out not to be necessary because Cas already had Charlie in his arms and was whispering something in her ear which made her legitimately shriek. Dean figured he really didn’t want to know what that was about. “Let’s go to the balcony,” Cas said, letting her go and wrapping one arm around Dean’s waist, and Dean nodded. It was okay, he had Cas and Charlie and a beer, he could do this. He snagged another beer just in case.

They made their way upstairs, the better to watch exactly one tiny corner of the parade as it turned onto the Strand. The New Orleans-style brass bands seemed adequately loud, though, as they had to shout to be heard. The krewes had more rainbow-colored lights and twerking than Dean had expected; the crowd below shouted and scrambled, collecting thrown beads, while Charlie jostled into him comfortably and was yelling about how it reminded her of her first Pride parade. Cas had silently moved to one corner of the wrought-iron railing, leaning out over it in a way that made Dean nervous.

He squeezed Charlie’s hand and let it go. “Be right back, sis.”

Nestled behind Cas, chin resting on his shoulder, Dean could see a spar of blue-and-white rigging that jutted just above the rooftops. Cas nodded toward it. “Look, you can see the cruise lines from here. And Moody Plaza.”

Dean squinted. “That the insurance building?” Always ringed at the top by a corona of green lights, tonight Galveston’s single skyscraper was additionally lit in garish purple.

“Yes, and that way—” Cas turned them toward the south—“you could see our house, if it weren’t for the fog.”

_Our house_. Dean closed his eyes for a second and wished he were there. Or anywhere else. “The fog, plus the fact that it’s like ten miles away?” he tried to joke, putting back the rest of his first beer and setting the empty bottle behind a potted palm tree, safely out of the way of partygoers’ feet.

“Sometimes I have to—it’s about _height_ ,” Cas said, so quietly Dean could hardly hear him. “Which is also, actually, why I live where I do. Being at ground-level, it’s not…I don’t really…I should have told you. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

Dean hadn’t understood a word of that but nodded like he did, and kissed Cas on the forehead. “We’re good, okay? Not a big deal. Now check _that_ out—” and everyone on the balcony whooped and clapped for a particularly ambitious set of dancers.

•

Eventually, as the party wound down, Dean found himself sitting on a rattan sofa in the opposite corner of the balcony, thick paper plate of enchiladas in one hand, with Cas, true to form, wound half around him, half on him, like some kind of weird cat.

Charlie was cross-legged on the bed in the room behind them, having an intense conversation with Cindy and Sara about tracking witches via online forums, all three of them putting away ruffled potato chips with a carton of French onion dip (Dean hadn’t seen the need to tell Charlie who or rather what exactly Sara and Cindy were, but just mentioned that they were in the life). The rest of the guests had largely scattered, mostly headed down to Galveston’s lone downtown nightclub to get their groove on.

This was the part of a party Dean liked best, just a few quiet conversations and the beer buzz having mellowed into something that just added a little fuzziness around the edges, just enough so that he could forget he was now officially over forty and had basically done nothing with his life besides raise Sam (sort of) and successfully not get killed.

Cas stole a bite of enchilada, and made an indecent sound around the plastic fork.

“These…yes. Yes to these.”

Dean looked over at him, amused. “You like ‘em? You complained enough about how long they were taking.”

“I like them so much that I’m going to buy tomatillos and extra peppers this Sunday. Can we freeze the salsa?”

Dean felt something loosen in his chest, and he relaxed infinitesimally down into the seat, which could have something to do with having lost count of the beers, curling an arm more tightly around Cas’s hips.

“Yeah, we can totally—hey! Avery?” Dean sloughed off Cas with difficulty and stood up.

“Hi, Dean—everybody. Sorry I’m so late,” said Avery apologetically, standing at the top of the stairs and holding out a bakery box like it would keep them safe from harm. They were wearing the same neon-green LET’S GO CRAY t-shirt that Dean remembered from the club that night, and their blonde hair was tipped with faint magenta purple in a homemade kind of way, that reminded Dean of kids in high school dyeing their hair with grape Kool-Aid. Sara had hopped off the bed and was peering into the box greedily.

“You brought the king cake, that’s all that matters, and everyone’s gone so we each can have two pieces,” she said, sounding much more cheerful than Dean had ever heard her. Maybe it was like angels; maybe gods had a sugar thing. “What kind did you get?”

Avery raked their hair back with one hand, still looking guilty. “Raspberry cream cheese? I ordered it two days ago and just got distracted—come here, asshole.”

They put down the box on the top step and hugged Dean with a couple of back slaps thrown in. “Let’s go carve into this monster.”

•

By the time everyone was on their second piece, they had all gathered around the kitchen island and were quietly absorbed in the collective experience of ingesting sugar. Cas was on the other side of the butcher block, meticulously licking his finger to collect bits of frosting from the rim of his saucer. Dean was trying really hard not to watch that, while everyone else talked about what would happen when the next big hurricane came.

“I mean, it’ll be any year now,” said Avery. “It might be this season, we’re overdue.”

Charlie leaned forward, eyes bright. “What causes the most damage—the wind, or the water? I mean, you have a seawall, right, to keep out the water?”

Everyone laughed at this, but not unkindly. Avery covered Charlie’s hand with theirs, almost protectively, which Dean found…interesting.

“Oh my god, the seawall is, like, such a total joke. Here, I’ll show you,” and Avery started enacting Hurricane of the Century with a squashed oval slice of cake, demonstrating with their fork how the storm surge would rush back behind the island and then, unable to escape quickly enough, pour back forward to the Gulf from behind, right across the island—across, in fact, the very neighborhood where they all currently stood eating cake, very likely razing it to the ground, flattening every house in its literal wake.

Cas stopped questing for frosting and shuddered visibly. “I don’t like it.”

“No one likes it,” said Avery brightly, putting down their plate and getting up for another slice. “And Galveston goes before the Texas lege _every year_ asking for money and engineers and fucking _resources_ , but no one seems to get it. It’s like we can’t care until it happens, but if we wait for it to happen, there’s gonna be nothing left standing on the island.”

“What about the spillway, or causeway or whatever—that long bridge I drove across?” asked Charlie, frowning. “Doesn’t it do anything?”

“Only if we all evacuate in time. Water from the bay goes right over it,” Avery said succinctly, wiping sugar from their lips. And then Charlie was drawing something urgent and trigonometrical on a napkin, and Avery’s head was bent close to hers as they argued.

Dean was still thinking about that, about waiting until the bad thing happened, when Sara pressed a red Solo cup into his hand, standing close and smiling up at him.

“Things we don’t care about until it’s too late—familiar, isn’t it.”

Dean blinked down at her. “What’s this?”

“Mojito. Thought we should switch it up.”

He liked her a lot better now. They toasted each other and threw them back. Dean was pleased to see that Sara matched him, reaching for a pitcher wet with condensation, pouring them both seconds. They toasted again and this time Dean nursed his a little, tasting the muddled lime and mint. Sara quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Not much of a drinker,” he lied, as usual; but the first flush of rum was already pressing at the base of his skull, and Sara shook her head.

“All these years and Winchesters still try it on, fibbing to deities.”

“Don’t take it personally,” he tossed back at her, flirting coming back to him, the teasing push-pull of it. “Lying is how people get what we want. It’s in our nature.”

“And what do you want, mortal,” she asked, voice low. “Don’t you already have it?”

Dean didn’t answer that. He took a large gulp of his mojito.

Her eyes were focused on him intently, the hot brown of them boring into his. “You don’t fool me, Dean Winchester, with your work boots and your eyeshadow. I’m surprised you can fool Castiel, he must be too lovesick to call you out.”

“I found Jesus!” crowed Avery, lifting a tiny pink naked holy child from the same mass of cake crumbs that had not moments before represented Galveston Island, which Dean guessed was good luck for them; or maybe not choking on the plastic baby was good luck, for everyone. “Just in time, too, because as we all know, y’all _need_ Jesus.”

“And I can prove that,” said Charlie, eyes gleaming, “because I brought Cards Against Humanity. Who’s in?” Everyone immediately began protesting that they weren’t drunk enough, and Dean knew Charlie’s strategy well enough to know he wasn’t, either.

The conversation drifted from needing Jesus to jobs, and Dean was startled to learn that Cindy and Sara both worked at UT–Medical Branch. He’d assumed they were involved in vet stuff, like Cas and Avery, but it turned out they practiced medicine on humans. Maybe that made sense, for gods. They could still alter lives, just on a one-by-one basis.

Then there was that inevitable awkward moment when Avery asked what Charlie did, and how Charlie and Dean knew each other. Charlie smiled brightly.

“We’re both freelancer contractors in the same area. I do the programming and R&D stuff, and Dean is more of…a salesman. We operate out of Kansas—not far from the geographical center of the United States, actually. It’s very convenient.”

Dean blinked. This actually sounded sort of plausible, almost like it made sense. If by _salesman_ , you meant, you know. Chopping heads off things. “Yeah, I’m in the field a lot,” he agreed, not meeting her eyes, in case that made him start laughing.

“Speaking of which, Dean, I found some new clients for us? Similar to that last company, in Louisiana,” Charlie said, emphasizing certain words lightly.

Dean dealt with the last of his mojito. “Yeah, at some point I should probably get back.”

Charlie nodded. “This is an even bigger client than last time. I found records on their…their product, going back a really long way. They’ve grown faster, recently.”

Despite Charlie’s vagueness, Avery seemed oddly fascinated, and they started talking computer stuff, which made Dean’s brain freeze over a little. In the living room Cindy had put on a Prince compilation, which Dean knew probably meant dancing, and which he was also going to ignore (although you had to admit “Kiss” was a nearly perfect dance song, even he had to cop to that). He looked up to catch Cas’s eye and suggest they retire to the balcony again, and then froze, almost crushing the plastic cup in his hand.

Cas was gazing directly at him, with a look that was so familiar it ached in Dean’s chest, those blue eyes tracking his smallest movement. Suddenly Dean flashed back to every time he’d seen this look on Cas’s face and somehow (how?) he hadn’t known what it meant. He’d thought Cas’s staring was some angelic trait, like his vessel had forgotten how to blink, or had never known, or was half-angry (he’d seemed pissed off by humanity most of the time)—but come to think of it, none of the other angels Dean had known were guilty of starting the same kind of staring contests. And Dean hadn’t stared back at any of them either. He fought not to drown in that look, dark, entreating.

Dean knew better, now. Cas wasn’t angry. He was _longing_.

He looked around, seeing Cindy and Sara hand-in-hand, walking towards the living room, where Avery and Charlie were already draped over each other in a complicated yet cautious sort of way, he thought, swaying to “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man,” and Dean set down his cup. When he looked up, Cas was gone.

“Be right back,” he said tightly, to no one in particular, and took the stairs two at a time.

•

Cas was out on the balcony again, staring out at the eastern tip of the island, or more accurately, at the fog blanketing it. Dean came up behind him and reached out first, with one hand, to avoid startling him, but Cas said, without turning: “You lied.”

He sounded so put out about it that Dean almost laughed, but stopped himself. “About what we do for a living? Yeah, it seemed preferable to the alternative. Besides, humans tend to do that, Cas.” _To get what you want. Don’t you already have it._ “That’s not what’s really bothering you, is it? Tell me, babe.”

Cas did turn then, his face frustrated. “I already don’t know how to do this, Dean. It’s so much and it keeps changing, and then—and I can’t, and we aren’t going to be able to—”

Dean pulled him the rest of the way into his arms. “Hey, come on. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Cas said into the front of his shirt, but Dean felt the tension soak out of his shoulders, and Cas shivered a little, and pressed closer in.

Dean kissed the top of his head. “Okay, it’s not okay. Then tell me, sweetheart. Tell me what it is, so we can fix it.”

Cas shook his head side to side without looking up. “You can’t.”

“You sure about that?”

Cas was silent. Then, in a rush: “I know you need to leave and go back to hunting. And the bunker, and Charlie. I know you are. I just need to know when.”

Dean felt like someone had clocked him over the back of the head with a 2x4. He reached down, stunned, and tipped Cas’s chin up so he could see his eyes, which were tightly shut. “Is that really what you think? That I’m just gonna—I don’t know, peace out?”

“Maybe,” whispered Cas. “You tried once already.”

“How about this,” Dean said, softly, because his heart was fucking breaking, “How about you come with me.”

“To Kansas.”

“Why not? Just for a while. You can keep your place, we can afford it.”

“What about the shelter,” said Cas, still not opening his eyes. It wasn’t a question.

“I mean, they’re gonna miss you,” Dean admitted. “No one’s as good as you. But I bet there’s shelters in Kansas that need surgical techs. Or if you wanted to go to vet school—”

“I missed the Kansas State deadline, but I could apply this fall,” Cas said, and this time he opened his eyes, meeting Dean’s. Dean felt a hot surge of something he couldn’t identify inside his chest, but it was sharp and disorganized and it made his ribs hurt.

“That’s only like two hours away.”

“I know, I looked it up last year.”

“Why didn’t you apply last year, then, you trainwreck. Get it together.”

“Because we weren’t—” Cas seemed not to understand that had been a rhetorical question, so Dean had to bend down and kiss the explanation from him.

The kiss got complicated and heated, as they tended to do, and they were both breathing more quickly when Cas pulled back a moment later. “The bunker,” Dean realized, leaning his forehead against Cas’s. “It’s underground. You don’t even like to be ground-level.”

Cas didn’t respond, so Dean kept going. “How did you stay there with me and Sam, even as long as you did? That’s what you were saying earlier, isn’t it, why you live in that ratty thing on stilts. You like heights.” He almost laughed. “Of course you do, babe. Of course you do.”

Cas took Dean’s head in both hands and kissed him harder, pouring into the kiss all the words he seemingly couldn’t say. Instinctively, Dean pressed him toward the railing, since this was how most of their...encounters started these days: on Cas’s balcony. This time he did laugh.

“Oh my god, I thought maybe you were some kind of exhibitionist. But you just like being outside, and up high. How do angels even—like, do you do it in mid-air, or—”

“Stop talking,” hissed Cas, and they made out for some indeterminate length of time until Dean heard Charlie clearing her throat pointedly behind them.

“So, like, Cindy and Sara have a spare bed made up? And I’m gonna…yeah. Not go home with you two, that’s for sure. Anyway, Avery and I are taking a walk down Seawall.”

Dean had an idea what “walk” meant and that it might involve showing each other their tattoos, or Snapchatting, or whatever the youth did these days. He let go of Cas reluctantly.

“Got it, kiddo. Let’s have brunch tomorrow at the Mosquito, okay? Noon? Or, no—twelve-thirty. Avery can tell you where it is. Then we’ll show you the sights.”

“Kay,” said Charlie, accepting a goodbye hug. Then: “I’ll probably stay a couple days.”

Dean nodded against her hair. “And we might come back with you—hey, we’ll _see_ , okay? I said we’ll _see._ I know you’re probably bored to death alone up there, but we—we got some stuff to figure out first.” He intertwined his fingers with Cas’s.

“Goodnight, Charlie,” said Cas, giving her a precise cheek kiss.

She slipped from the balcony back into the house and they were left there looking at each other in the dark, lit only by Mardi Gras lights. Dean had been right about that; Cas’s skin looked gorgeous, golden in the faint light, almost glowing.

“We’ll figure this out, babe, I swear we will. For now let’s just—go back to the house.” For the first time in a long time, the word he’d been using so casually now felt strange in Dean’s mouth. He wondered if Cas had felt the same way, and if so, for how long.


	3. Chapter 3

They were quiet in the car on the way back, which Dean didn’t mind, because his hand was on Cas’s thigh with Cas’s hand covering it. The tape player was still broken and none of the radio stations were coming in properly through the fog, just static and crackle.

Inside the house, Cas kicked off his shoes and lit the hurricane lamp by the bed. Dean dropped his keys into a saucer at the top of the stairs (he had a place for his keys, when had that happened) and took the box of matches from Cas’s hand while he was still shaking out the one he’d just used. He set them down on the nightstand and dropped onto the edge of the bed, pulling Cas toward him.

“This is on me, okay. We should have talked about it by now. I just—it’s been—I’ve been…” Dean trailed off, reluctantly, running a hand down Cas’s long-sleeved t-shirt to his wrist.

“You’ve been happy,” Cas said, his voice low.

Dean nodded. “Yeah. We both have. And I didn’t want to mess with that. Or with what you’ve—what you’ve got going on here. You have a job, okay. Friends.” _And a plan for the rest of your life, a plan that doesn’t necessarily include me_ , he didn’t say. Cas ran both hands through his hair and Dean swore to himself he wouldn’t get distracted.

He was already distracted. Cas’s mouth quirked up at the corner and Dean wanted to taste it.

“You’re my friends, too. My family. You and Charlie and Sam.”

“Yeah, but friends don’t make friends live in an underground fucking _cave,_ in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do. You’d be literally climbing the walls inside a week.”

Cas leaned into him, then, a gentle pressure along Dean’s side. Dean wondered if he knew how good that charcoal-gray shirt looked on him, closely fitted to his ribs, his stomach, the width of his shoulders, his biceps. Bastard probably did. Dean wanted to take it off. “You say that, but what if—Dean, there has to be a way for this to work.”

“I think we’re just going to have to make it up as we go along,” he heard himself saying, an echo from a long time ago, his fingers skimming the hem of Cas’s shirt, teasing. “How much do you rent this place for? Can you sublet it? Can we—do both, somehow?”

Cas wrapped one palm around Dean’s jaw, holding him in place for the kiss, then drew back, blinking. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “Maybe. A timeshare? Maybe we can alternate. Although it makes more sense to spend winters here, and summers there—”

They kissed again, and this time when they pulled apart, reluctantly, Dean remembered the way Cas had been staring at him in Sara and Cindy’s kitchen—had been staring at him all those years. It wasn’t that he never wanted to see that look on Cas’s face again: torn, pulled open, vulnerable, every plane and angle suffused with desire. It was just that he wanted to be able to replace it quickly with the look that was on Cas’s face right now, the one where his eyes seemed lit up from inside, the soft fire of having rather than just wanting.

“Cas,” he said with difficulty, “I swear to god I’m not trying to derail this, but—”

“It’s okay,” Cas said against his mouth. “I want you, too.”

Somehow without very much thought, or maybe any, Dean was on his knees between Cas’s legs, his fingers poised at the top button of Cas’s jeans, almost salivating with arousal. “Is this, can I—”

Cas paused and held Dean’s hand there, in place, unmoving. Dean didn’t understand.

“Am I not—is it not good enough?”

Cas closed his eyes on a groan. “You have no idea how good.”

Dean flexed his fingers impatiently. “So let me—”

When Cas opened his eyes again that softness had been replaced with something hot and urgent, and Dean felt it stirring low in his belly.

“Not this time. I want—Dean, I want to keep you.”

Dean didn’t understand some more. “You do, I mean, you _have_ kept me. I’m right here.”

Cas shook his head. “I’m not explaining this right. Or at the right time. But I want—Dean, I want—”

He stopped again, visibly exasperated with himself, and Dean finally let go of the button he’d been clinging to, instead skimming his palms down Cas’s thighs, stroking as much to feel the muscles there as to reassure him. “It’s okay, babe. Whatever you want, it’s okay.”

Cas let out a sharp laugh, and when he spoke next his voice was ragged, and his eyes pierced Dean to the core. “Will you let me tie you up?”

Dean froze in mid-movement, blinded by the jolt of lust that ran through him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t half-expected this, or seen it coming—hell, he’d gotten off harder with Cas’s fingers manacling his wrists than he had in years, though it had just seemed like part of the package, with Cas. The holding-down, the throwing-around, the (he felt himself flushing) picking-out of clothing, the hand-feeding.

He didn’t have words for it, though. Didn’t have words for what it did to him. In fact, it turned out he only had one word, but that one word came out of him with startling ease.

“Yes. Fuck, yeah.”

•

If Dean had been afraid that Cas was going to be weird or finicky about proceedings, he was relieved when Cas just nodded and, after rummaging in his foot locker, pulled out a surprisingly soft-looking coil of cotton rope (Dean wasn’t sure what he’d expected; something scratchy, apparently, but that was probably because he was usually tied up in much less fun ways). Cas tossed it onto the bed before stripping Dean with efficient, rapid gestures. He pulled off his own shirt over his head, but left on his pants.

Dean must have had some kind of look on his face; Cas stopped unwinding the hank of rope and set it down on the bed beside him. “Wait. I’m doing this wrong.”

Dean leaned up on one elbow and tried to smirk, tried not to think about how Cas had acquired his…knowledge. “Looks to me like you know exactly what you’re doing.”

Cas reached up without comment and pinched Dean’s nipple, and he sucked in a breath and went still. Okay, he’d probably deserved that.

“That’s not what I meant. I meant, we should do this the other way around, at least the first time. We should talk about it. We should have a protocol, for when you need me to stop—”

“How about I just say _stop_ , does that work for you?”

Cas shook his head, but started uncoiling the rope again. Dean felt something unidentifiable singing in his bloodstream, sending prickles of excitement to the tips of his fingers.

“ _Stop_ is fine, for now anyway. But let’s talk this through first.” He paused, thinking. “Either just wrists, or just ankles. You pick.”

Dean thought about it, alright; far too vividly. Thought about writhing underneath Cas and not being able to move. “Ankles.”

Cas exhaled once, sharply, through his nostrils, then knelt between Dean’s legs and put a hand on each knee, spreading him farther apart. “You’re so beautiful like this, already. You can’t imagine how it feels. I never—”

“—pretty sure I can,” Dean interrupted, having exactly zero way to hide his erection, swollen red and already leaking precome onto his stomach. “I mean, are you blind? I told you when this started, man, if you had any kinky shit to work out—”

This time it was Cas who interrupted him, voice made of limestone shale and peat whisky. “Believe me, I remember.”

Dean nodded, gulping, as Cas made some kind of loop, then slipped the cottony rope around an ankle and first one corresponding leg of the bed, and then the other. He had to admit Cas was smart to make him choose, this time. If he’d been bound spread-eagled, he might have panicked.

He might still panic. That almost felt like part of it, like maybe fighting through that was part of the point. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was okay; he trusted Cas. He knew him, all the way through.

“And you promise—you’ll tell me to stop the second anything gets uncomfortable?”

“I promise, okay. Don’t worry so much, babe, you’re too—” Dean felt the rope’s slack draw up, just a little, and forgot what he was saying.

Cas finished his half-hitches or [whatever he was doing down there](http://www.theduchy.com/PrusikShackle/PrusikShackle.shtml) and came up off the floor, dusting the knees of his jeans, hair already a disaster. Dean swallowed hard to tamp down whatever was washing around inside of him, crashing like surf, as Cas ran an attentive finger between the rope and the skin of Dean’s ankle. “Is this too tight?”

Dean pulled against it experimentally, to see how much give it had, and had to close his eyes for a second. “No, babe. It’s fine.”

Cas crawled up on hands and knees toward Dean’s face then, kissing him with devastating thoroughness. Dean stuck his hands behind his lower back, just to…put them somewhere, instinctively feeling that he wasn’t supposed to touch Cas, although he was already nearly gasping from the effort. “Does, does this mean,” he started, then broke down, confused.

“You don’t have to talk, Dean. That can even be part of it, sometime, if you want.” _Oh my god, he means a gag_ , thought Dean helplessly. Cas slid his palm down Dean’s chest toward the sensitive part of his stomach, and a quiver ran through him.

“But I just—does this mean you’re my—because—” (he died a little, inside, then forced himself to say the words) “—because we both like you to top?”

Cas was licking along Dean’s jawline and he felt him still there for an instant, then bite down on the hinge, fingers digging into Dean’s hipbones. “It’s far more complicated than that, but if that’s what you—I’ll be anything you need.”

“Good,” breathed Dean, “then for chrissake take off your fucking pants.”

Cas snorted, which in turn made Dean laugh, and the jeans vanished over the side of the bed. Cas was between Dean’s legs again, licking a deliberate stripe up his dick, and suddenly Dean wasn’t laughing anymore, but hitching his hips upward, entreating.

“Not yet,” said Cas, kicking his boxers down to the foot of the bed, then straddling Dean’s chest, and then his head, and Dean, heart hammering against his ribs, felt the silk of Cas against his lips, blood-hot, hard. “Oh fuck,” he whispered, before Cas was in his mouth, careful but deep, his hands cupping Dean’s head and holding him still.

“You’re so good,” Cas choked, half-moaning what Dean knew had to be praise, from the way pleasure curled up inside him like ink blossoming in water. “I knew you would be, you always are. Oh, I am going to take you _apart.”_


	4. Chapter 4

Dean came apart.

It was strange, because at the same time he also felt himself held securely, caught and cradled, taut between the rope and Cas’s strong hands; but even in that precise moment of being firmly fixed and pressed down he still spiraled inside, went someplace that was colorless and dizzying and over-oxygenated, leaving him winded and stunned.

Cas fucked his mouth tenderly, but bruisingly, entirely, leaving Dean the smallest intervals to sip down air before there was again nothing but Cas, Cas taking up all the space in the room as he always did, filling Dean’s entire field of vision, crowding his senses. Dean had expected to panic when he couldn’t choose when to breathe, but the taut pull of the ropes around his ankles, the sting of tears in the corners of his eyes, the gentleness of Cas’s hands on his head even as his hips drove forward again and again, and above all the soft repeated praise, these kept him grounded and settled while he drowned in swells of thrumming sensation, eyes watering but locked on Castiel’s, needing to see him, needing to know this was doing something for him, too.

It definitely did something for him. Dean was pretty sure he had never seen him come this hard, almost doubled over by it, hand tightening in Dean’s hair painfully, eyes blazing, saying things that would have made Dean die of shame had he not been himself completely overwhelmed, and also mostly had his mouth full. Since when did Cas use _words_ like these, Dean wanted to squirm away from them but his shoulders were pinned down and he was too focused on the warm wet stripes falling across his cheeks and open mouth, trying mindlessly to catch them, aching for anything Cas would give him.

“Sweet boy,” Cas rasped, one hand tight around his cock, still jerking, still coming on Dean’s face, and Dean would have flushed had he not already been, he knew, bright red, chest heaving for air. “Your fucking mouth, so pretty, oh my love, such a good boy for me, god you make me come so hard, _fuck—Dean_ —”

Cas’s eyelids fluttered shut and he swayed over him, finally letting go of Dean’s hair to lean on one arm against the wall above the bed, out of breath, cock in his fist still twitching and dripping. With a violent lunge Dean was able to get his lips around it one last time, sucking hard at the head for that briny bitterness, for the pleasure of making Cas shudder and hiss, drawing in air through clenched teeth. _How is this my life now,_ he thought numbly, tongue throbbing, licking his lips. He almost felt like he was coming himself, waves of heat washing over him even though he wasn’t being touched, maybe wouldn’t be touched.

Cas pushed off him, just managing not to clock Dean in the face with his knee as he all but crumpled and fell to one side. Dean twisted his upper half to face him, ignoring a rapidly cooling trickle in his hairline, another one dripping off his chin, before he remembered his hands weren’t tied. He yanked them out from underneath himself, tingling and mostly asleep, to grab a corner of the sheet and make a half-hearted pass at his face, drying it off the best he could before reaching out and drawing Cas against his chest. Cas let himself be tugged, still limp, limbs sprawling.

Dean pressed a kiss onto the top of Cas’s head, smirked (and then grimaced a little as the corners of his mouth pulled). “Well, shit. Wasn’t expecting that. You’re quite the—”

Without looking up Cas pressed a finger against Dean’s lips. “Shhhh. Shh.”

Dean nipped at the reproachful finger, then laughed, lips still swollen. He drew in a deep breath, giddy; he didn’t even care about the raging hard-on that apparently he was going to die with. He’d finally done it. He’d broken Cas. That was worth anything.

To his surprise, somewhere right in the middle of that thought he actually fell asleep, Cas a tangled, inert heap half on top of him, and he came around only when he heard the muted _snick_ of a bottle cap.

“What,” he said thickly, still trying to get his mouth working again.

“Nothing,” said Cas, his body now stretched out alongside Dean’s, one long shin insinuating itself between Dean’s legs, which spread wider automatically for him, pulling again against the rope.

Cas tossed the bottle off somewhere over his shoulder and Dean heard it hit the floor with a clatter, just as Cas’s fingers closed around him, cool and slick. Cas drew his hand upward once, a fast loose wet glide that made Dean’s stomach muscles clench involuntarily, before tightening his hand into a snug fist and sliding it slowly back down. Cas held him there firmly but didn’t move, fingers circled around the base of his cock, poised as if waiting for instruction.

“That’s not—that wasn’t _nothing_ ,” Dean got out, not sure how Cas could do this to him with just one stroke, it wasn’t fair. His hips shifted, tried to thrust. “Cas—please, just—come _on_ , man.” His erection definitely hadn’t gone away; even with Cas not moving his hand, Dean felt his balls draw up and the muscles in his calves go shivery-taut, expectant.

“Please what,” said Cas, voice low, breath hot against Dean’s neck.

“Jesus Christ you _know_ what,” panted Dean, twisting against the ropes, feeling slightly insane.

“This?” said Cas, and Dean was blind with it, right on the edge and he just needed, just, all he needed was, yes, was _that_ —was _what he had_ : Cas’s teeth fastened on his earlobe, and Cas’s hands—both of them now, oh god, his completely fucking sinful _hands_ —stroking upward one after the other, without pause, rippling slippery-tight and perfect up the length of him and over the head, wet filthy sounds in the darkness and Dean’s breath snagged in his throat, he was already going to come, he couldn’t stop it, “Cas,” he begged, though there was no point in it because Cas was giving him everything, _everything—_

“So fucking sweet—yes, baby boy, you’re so close, let me make you, let me make you come, fuck yes, come for me, come _right now_ —” said Cas in his ear and that was it, Dean’s back arched off the bed and his legs went rigid, Cas pushed away to kneel above him, hands flying over him, pulling it right out of him, and a sharp startled sound left his throat that he couldn’t have described, only it was need and desire and raw pure yearning for the exact thing he was getting, and there was no point in trying so hard not to say it, every cell in his body was saying it, he might as well let it out—

“ _Fuck,_ Castiel, oh god, Cas, I love you,” and he didn’t know if he’d shouted or whispered it but either way it was probably okay, because now Cas had a hand pressed into the center of his chest and was leaned over kissing the spit out of him, and Dean couldn’t lift his head to kiss him back but he opened his mouth to give Cas whatever he needed, whatever he wanted to take, he could do that, it was all his by now anyway, had been for a long time, for forever—there was no part of him that wasn’t Cas’s, and he might as well know it, in case he wanted anything that Dean had forgotten to give him already.

“You’re so beautiful,” Cas said into his mouth, still pulling at him gently, stroking him through the aftershocks, and then he settled against Dean’s side, kissing his neck, letting him breathe, which was good, because Dean was sucking down air like these were his first breaths or maybe his last. He managed to reach down a hand to cover Cas’s and stop him moving, flinching, oversensitive.

Their fingers snagged and entwined and they lay there, hands clenched together, gripped hard, as Dean felt his throat threatening to close up, tears blurring his vision.

“You’re okay,” said Cas without moving, except to throw his leg across Dean and somehow pull him closer.

Dean swallowed hard; again, and once more, before he could trust himself to speak. “Yeah, course I am.”

Cas raised his head at this, eyeing Dean with one brow lifted before starting to place slow kisses along the top of Dean’s shoulder. “You love me. You’re mine.”

Dean cleared his throat. “You didn’t know that?”

Cas paused in mid-kiss, then flopped back down, looking so intently at Dean that he finally turned his head to meet Cas’s gaze. His eyes were dark in the lamplight, a deep-rinsed color Dean honestly only ever saw after sex; or sometimes the very first thing in the morning, when his entire face was relaxed, even the laugh lines.

“I knew. But.” He paused. “It’s always different when you say it to me.”

Dean squeezed his hand, letting go of it in favor of stretching, then wrapping his arm around Cas and pulling him more firmly into his side. He took a breath, told himself not to be an asshole. Not to try to take it back or water it down or laugh it off. “Well, it should be, I guess. I mean, it is. When you say it to me. It’s different.”

Cas nuzzled his shoulder, then put his head on Dean’s chest, in the spot right under Dean’s collarbone where he belonged, and Dean felt his throat swelling shut again. He closed his eyes, willing himself to get a grip, feeling Cas’s voice reverberate through him. “That’s because all language is spellwork, Dean. Especially with emotion behind it.”

He thought of Sam doing incantations in Latin, Sumerian, Enochian; Sam shouting against the invisible wind that always blew when supernatural things got angry, voice rising as he struggled to hold some book of magic open and keep chanting. Apparently things yelled out during sex were just as powerful? That made sense. (Dean willed down a blush, was not going to think about—about what Cas had called him.)

Maybe things you said afterwards were spells, as well. The lamp next to the bed flickered; its kerosene had almost run out, wick dimming from red-orange to gray.

Suddenly Cas sat bolt-upright, then moved with alacrity to the foot of the bed, undoing knots and rubbing at Dean’s ankles. “Shit, I didn’t—are these alright? How do you feel?”

“Hey, I’m fine. You know what you’re doing, and it wasn’t even that long.”

Cas dropped back down on the foot of the bed, flexing one of Dean’s ankles carefully back and forth, studying it fiercely like some sacred codex resisting his efforts at translation. “It’s _not_ fine. Your circulation could have been cut off, you could have—”

Dean sat up and reached for him. “Hey, babe. Cas. Come back. Don’t freak out on me, okay?”

Cas looked up at him then, and placed his foot back down on the bed, sighing. “You’re right. It’s just that I forgot, there’s a way to do these th—let me at least get you some water.”

He returned from the kitchen with two bottles and slid back down next to Dean, handing him one, then lay on his back looking at the ceiling while Dean gratefully sucked down the entire thing. Shit, he’d needed that. His throat hurt, but not enough to mention.

Instead, he exhaled and gathered his courage to say something else.

“So if I’m—if I’m, you know. Yours. Then, uh.”

Cas rolled over, threaded his fingers together and propped his head up on Dean’s chest, staring at him unselfconsciously. “Then what.”

Dean let his eyes fall shut again, just for a second, trying to stay calm, wondering where his nerve had gone. This shouldn’t be so hard. They’d already—it’d been _weeks_. This was clearly a thing, and they were going to be okay somehow and he was being stupid—

He opened them when he felt Cas’s hand, tender but sure, thumb brushing against his cheek. Cas was smiling up at him and Dean wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to the lightness on his face, that humanness, an ease and a kind of earned innocence. “Then...yes.”

Dean blinked. “Yes?”

“Yes, I’ll come home with you.”

And Dean just had time to think, as he pulled Cas up to him, their mouths meeting and the hurricane lamp next to the bed finally giving up and guttering out,—he just had time to think, with a rush of gratitude like liquid, _this is the love of my life,_ and that maybe they weren’t going to die horribly, or for a long time even, and that he could have this, or something like it, nights and days with Cas where he wasn’t always waiting, tensed, listening for the dreaded rustle of departing wingbeats, a sound that always made the bottom fall out of his chest, or half-expecting the door to fly open any second and some fresh terror to burst in, disrupting everything, its teeth and talons at their throats.

Maybe, instead, something else. Maybe he could make enchiladas and Cas could come in from work at night and strip out of his scrubs directly into the washing machine, and they could shower and touch and be there together, in that small yet infinite candled space, warm and close, that Dean had mostly only ever known as he saw it disappearing in the rear-view mirror.

He pulled back a little. “Charlie might even want to stay here for a while? I don’t know. She seems like she’s…making friends, I guess.”

“Mmm,” agreed Cas, and then they were kissing again in the dark, until Cas reached down with one hand and pulled the sheet up around them, backing up to Dean shamelessly and pulling his arm firmly around him, Dean’s knees fitting into the back of Castiel’s, Dean’s lips pressed against the nape of his neck.

Maybe they could have things. Maybe.

“So I’m going to keep you,” said Cas, sounding aggrieved but determined, the way he usually did when he was starting to get groggy.

Dean laughed silently, wriggling his hips closer. “Yeah, you’re fucking stuck with me.” Maybe they could have each other. Maybe Dean could keep him, too. Keep this. Maybe.

Cas shifted a little against him. “But we don’t know how it’s going to work.”

“Yeah, so, when did we ever? We’ll figure it out.” _Maybe._ No, we will. _Maybe_.

There was a long silence, filled only by the stuttered quiet rush of waves outside, and peeper frogs chirping in the dunes. Dean tightened his arms around Cas and his chest felt full of rainwater, like if he moved too suddenly, everything might come spilling out. Maybe Cas would come with him, and would stay. Maybe the world wasn’t going to end this time, or maybe any more times. He would build Cas a balcony, a rooftop garden, a treehouse. He would have time to build things. Cas could do the work he loved; save animals, heal them, send the old or sick ones on their way peacefully.

“Hey, Cas?”

“Mmph?”

“Where do animals go, when they die?”

Cas made a noise Dean couldn’t interpret. “They go to Heaven, obviously.”

Dean frowned into the dark. “But that’s...you _say_ it’s obvious, but, uh, pretty sure most people don’t know that. Does that mean animals have—have souls?”

“Of course they have souls, Dean. They’re literally animate—from _anima_ , the Greek word for soul. How could people love their pets, and be loved by them, if they didn’t? And animals love each other, too; they have families, friends. They cherish and grieve their intimates; they communicate, make connections. _Patently_ they have souls.” He yawned, thrust his arm up under his pillow more firmly, was clearly done talking.

Dean nodded against the back of his neck, thinking, listening for the little cough Cas always gave right before he tapped out, sometimes with a full-body twitch—there it was.

Maybe they were home here, too. Maybe [the mortal, guilty, but to him entirely beautiful](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/lullaby-0) creature in his arms was already his home, as much as the Impala or his brother or the bunker or the life. His animal. His family, his friend. His intimate. Maybe. _Don’t you already have it_ , Kali had said. What you want, don’t you already have it. Don’t you already have it. _Maybe_. Making room for each other, leaving marks one on the other. Deep but invisible tracks. Ruined, broken, faithless, whole. Don't you already have it. _Maybe._ Possibly. Maybe.


	5. Chapter 5

_Five weeks later._

•

“Be careful,” Cas said, just as Dean hit his head on Baby’s door frame, straightening up too fast. He winced and felt for blood automatically, forgetting to brush off his hands first, so now he had dirt in his hair. This was going great.

Cas moved next to him, his thigh pressing up against Dean’s. “Here, let me,” he said with concern, and Dean thought Cas was going to look at his head until Cas knelt and started rearranging the giant pots of his goddamn container garden, one fragile tomato stem dangerously bent against the back of the front seat, soil spilling everywhere. Dean looked down at the back of Cas’s sunburned neck and wished he’d spread out more copies of the _Galveston Daily News_ in the floorboards.

“There,” said Cas, having moved around the pots to his satisfaction. He stood up and wiped his hands on his jeans, squinting at Dean, who was still feeling the top of his head gingerly. “Oh,” he said, sounding guilty, “you weren’t careful.”

“No big deal,” Dean said, forcing a smile and wondering where they were going to put Cas’s oversized foot-locker steamer-trunk thing. If he put it in the trunk, he wouldn’t be able get to the weapons in time. If he put it in the back seat, it was going to dent the leather and there wouldn’t be room for the boxes. But if he put the boxes in the trunk—

“Dean,” said Cas, sounding alarmed, and Dean thought from the look on Cas's face and the hand gripping his arm, Cas had probably already said his name several times. “You’re not listening.”

“Look, let’s just finish and get this—”

“I think we should take a break,” said Cas at the same time, reaching up to brush potting soil out of Dean’s hair.

As if on cue Charlie came up behind them, her sneakers crunching on the gravel, handing them each a pint mason jar, wet with condensation. Something cold; Dean didn’t care what it was.

It turned out to be this thing she liked to make with almond liqueur and lemons and sugar and quite a lot of whiskey, to which she sometimes referred as a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster; Dean drank it anyway because it had ice in it, wiping sweat off his forehead.

Charlie beamed at him, undeterred, as he swallowed and then made his most hideous goblin-face at her. “So Kim and Heather are totally fine with Cas subletting to me,” she said, leaning against the side of the Impala. “They just wanted my rental references, which are of course _outstanding_.” By which Dean assumed she meant, forged.

Cas nodded. “They’ve been wonderful landladies. You just have to let them know if anything breaks, and don’t forget to keep up with the water bill.”

Dean had heard Cas muttering about it often enough; the city charged $55 just as a starting monthly flat fee, regardless of how much actual water you used, but he figured that was fair, since they were literally _on an island_.

He finished his whatever-it-was and dropped a grateful kiss on top of Charlie’s head, then started back to the house for the boxes, Cas and Charlie trailing behind him, talking about taking down the window screens for summer and how best to keep out the giant winged insects that Cas called, euphemistically, “palmetto bugs,” which didn’t make Dean like them any better, and which he tried not to think about, ever. (“ _Nothing_ that big should be allowed to fly,” he’d told Cas flatly, not even caring what it sounded like.)

As much as he kept bitching about trying to cram the contents of Cas’s life into the Impala, Dean was not-so-secretly thrilled at the fact that he was going to stuff Cas into the passenger seat and take off with him. He felt like he was getting away with something, like it was the end of a heist movie and he had the priceless jewel securely stowed in a secret pocket sewn on the inside of his jacket. Like he’d pulled the sword triumphantly from the stone; scratched off his ticket and won the jackpot.

Sam, of course, had known all along. Probably before Dean had, come to think of it.

> **_From_** _: Dean <black1967impala@gmail.com>_  
>  **_To_ ** _: Sam Winchester <scwinchester@law.stanford.edu>_  
>  **_Date_ ** _: Friday, April 12, 2019, 2:57:50 am CST_  
>  **_Subject_ ** _: Galveston and stuff_
> 
> _Hey college boy, hope things are chill back in Cali and your super-hot new girlfriend hasn’t come to her senses and dumped your sad nerd ass. Look there’s no slick way to say this so I’m just gonna get it over with, me and Cas are staying together. Like, for good. But you probably figured that out when I didn’t leave. Anyway, we’re headed back to the Batcave this weekend, and Charlie’s going to hang out here on the island for a while. There’s the Witchery, and she says we’ll diversify our operations, whatever that means. I think she’s seeing someone. Also she’s got that stuff you asked for, says she’ll mail it asap. I’ll text you when we get home. Good luck with midterms, bitch._

> **_From_ ** _: Sam Winchester <scwinchester@law.stanford.edu>_  
>  **_To_ ** _: Dean Winchester <black1967impala@gmail.com>_  
>  **_Date_ ** _: Saturday, April 13, 2019, 7:09:06 am PST  
>  _ **_Subject_ ** _: Re: Galveston and stuff_
> 
> _Oh my fucking god, how are you such an idiot, Dean. Of course you guys are staying together, that was obvious in Baton Rouge in January. Or in, like, 2008. But whatever, I guess when you’re a total dumbass that kind of thing is harder to figure out._
> 
> _Anyway I’m glad you’re both going back, and you’re not doing something stupid like leaving Cas there—just make sure you put him up in that one weird-shaped room that has the little window up high, he doesn’t like being underground. Also don’t touch the two stacks of books on top of the card index; I’m right in the middle of something and I’ll get back to it this summer._
> 
> _Yeah, Eileen and I (you know you can use her name, jackass, it’s EILEEN btw) are really good. I kind of want you to get to know her; she knows a lot more about a lot of stuff than I would have guessed. Don’t text, call me when you get there and let’s talk about the Louisiana thing. I have an idea, jerk._

Dean paused at the foot of the stairs, suddenly wondering about this Eileen chick, so abruptly that Cas almost ran into him. Dean turned around to face them.

“Son of a—wait. You know what? That _asshat_. She’s a hunter. A hunter! A motherfucking—send the kid _a thousand miles away_ to a goddamn Ivy League university and he still meets a _hunter_? How the hell does this shit keep happening to us?”

“Sam’s girlfriend,” Charlie interpreted, nodding at Cas, whose brow cleared.

Cas nodded back, meditatively. “It’s natural, though, Dean. Imagine being with someone who couldn’t know about any part of your life—not the real part, anyway. So much lying, so much of your story, yourself you’d have to hide...how lonely that would be.”

Okay, he was right; Dean had tried to do that, and it fucking sucked.

“Done that,” said Charlie, sounding grim. “Sucks.”

(He wondered what was happening between her and Avery, who actually seemed disarmingly level-headed and could probably handle knowing about the existence of a few monsters, especially since they took on angry feral cats every day, which were almost worse.)

Cas pressed him gently toward the staircase. “Come on—you’re taking a break. It’s going to require both of us to move the trunk, because of all the books in it, but I’m putting a blanket down in the back seat first so it doesn’t hurt the upholstery.”

Dean looked from one of them to the other, Charlie’s hair smooth and shining in the late-afternoon sun, Cas’s sweaty and demented-looking, his mouth open a little, the collar of his faded black t-shirt askew.

Without quite knowing why, Dean felt all the tension leave his shoulders, and he grinned. He couldn’t wait to be on the road. He grabbed Charlie’s hand.

“Alright fine, but show me how you make those lemon-sugar-booze things.”

“It’s called an amaretto sour, you Visigoth.”

“Whatever, _Charles_ , it’s cold and has alcohol in it, that’s all that—”

“ _Upstairs_ ,” said Cas, pushing at both of them now. Dean spun pointedly around in a crouch and Charlie seized the opening, hopping on his back; he took the stairs two at a time, showing off.

And felt, not for the first time, a pang about leaving her. They’d hunted together, been roommates for—well, more than a few years now, Dean wasn’t going to count how many.

But it was only a twelve-hour drive. They’d come down. She’d come up. She needed her life back. It was going to work out.

He dropped her at the top of the stairs, only a little winded. Cas came up right behind him, hooking two fingers into the waistband of his jeans and hauling him toward the sofa.

They were leaving all the furniture for Charlie, since the bunker didn’t need anything. Dean thought he might try to make Cas a bookshelf for his vet school books, so he wouldn’t have to keep them in the library. He knew from Sam that grad school involved a lot of thick expensive books, and many different shapes and colors of Post-It notes, also neon highlighters. Cas already had a laptop, but maybe he needed a calculator? Did people doing science stuff even still use calculators? Dean wasn’t sure.

“Sit,” ordered Cas, shoving him down only to collapse next to him, swinging his legs up into Dean’s lap, where his hands curled unthinkingly around Cas’s calves, massaging them a little. “But I have to learn how to make a drink,” he objected, until Charlie stood in front of him showing the gradations marked on the side of the mason jar.

“Dean, it’s literally—even you can’t fuck it up. To this line is lemon juice, then the same amount of simple syrup, then to here with amaretto, and about half as much whiskey. Then ice, and shake it pretty hard. You can skip the egg whites. So the proportions are 1:1:2—I make ‘em kind of strong.”

“Which is why we’re related.”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Look, I may be an honorary Winchester, but I missed the drinking-problem gene, okay.”

Dean started to open his mouth to tease her about getting stoned, but then considered all the times she’d shared her stash with him and thought better of it. Instead what came out, unexpectedly, was more of a question than a sentence: “You’re gonna be okay?”

She stood surveying him and Cas, who had sat up and was studying a throw pillow like it held answers to important questions. “And why wouldn’t I be, genius.”

Dean rolled his shoulders a little and looked away, embarrassed. “I don’t know. I mean. Yeah, okay. Clearly you’ll—just, look.” He stopped, then started again in a rush. “Just don’t forget to wear shoes if you go swimming, now that it’s warm, because there’s—”

“—stingrays, they’re the exact same pattern as the sand and you can’t see them through the water,” she recited. “I _know_ , Dean. I also know how to spot a rip current by the color of the surf, the difference between a shark and a dolphin fin, and when to get the fuck out of the water because a storm is coming. I’m not dumb enough to use a paddle board, a.k.a. Invitation to the Limbs of Charlie Bradbury Buffet; and unlike you I don’t even scream when those big silver fish jump out of the water right in my face.”

(She had him there—he’d totally screamed. And fumbled for a gun which wasn’t on him, but never mind that.)

“But you’ll call right away,” he pressed on, undaunted, ignoring Cas’s warning glare. “Like if anything weird comes up.” _Or comes at you_ , he thought, unendingly miserable about having dragged her into their shit, no matter how much she said she loved it.

“Weirder than me?”

“I know it’s hard to imagine, sis, but there’s definitely shit weirder than you.”

She beamed at him for no reason he could understand. “Avery’s coming over for dinner. They’re going to walk on the beach with me to something called the Pink Dolphin Memorial? I’m not completely alone here, Dean. I’m making friends. I’ll be _fine._ ”

Dean made a face at her, but his heart wasn’t in it, still preoccupied.

Charlie kicked at his foot companionably, then turned back to the kitchen. “Bleep-blorp,” she sang out over her shoulder, signifying the end of the conversation.

When he looked over, Cas was still glaring at him. “What’d I do now?”

“You stopped rubbing my legs.”

“The things I put up with. You don’t even know.” He reached forward and brushed Cas’s damp hair out of his eyes, so he could glare at Dean better. Fuck, he loved him.

“Are we still planning to leave first thing in the morning?” Cas asked, softening a little, as though he knew what Dean was thinking. Dean pressed a kiss against his forehead, congratulating himself on not even checking to see if Charlie was within eyeshot.

“Actually I was—what do you think about taking off this evening, soon as we’re done? Stop in glamorous, cosmopolitan Shawnee for the night. Let Charlie get settled in here without us, have her dinner date.” He was a grown man, he could admit things to himself. Like that he wanted Cas to fuck him senseless in a motel bed, then maybe fool around in the shower, then maybe the bed again, until it was 3 a.m. and the management called to report noise complaints.

And he wanted to _go_. The in-betweenness of it was grating, a diamond-tipped drill bit gouging at him. They weren’t here anymore, but they weren’t there yet, either.

Cas leaned his forehead against Dean’s and nodded. “Me, too.”

“You too, what?”

“The same thing.”

“The same as?”

Cas narrowed his eyes meaningfully and Dean kissed him just to stop the exchange. This was already ridiculous, they hadn’t been together long enough for obnoxious incoherent private couple-language. Except that apparently they had, because he’d known Cas since he was 29, and Cas had probably known Dean a lot longer.

“You have the worst poker face,” Cas said serenely, standing up and pulling the wool Mexican blanket off the back of the sofa after him, folding it over one arm. “I’m going to go put this in the back seat, and then let’s finish loading up and get the fuck out of here.”

Dean tilted his head back to see him better: the rest of his life looking down at him, still somehow and always, forever half-angel, also now more human than ever; and all male, with his jeans hanging loose around his hips and dampness ringing the frayed collar of his t-shirt, and that soft flush along the tops of his cheekbones that always made Dean feel unsettled and strange, like if he looked too long at Castiel’s face the world would start turning itself inside out and drag him through its omphalos along with it.

 _What you want, don’t you already have it_. Hadn’t he, for a long time? Or could have, if he hadn’t been too scared, unable to reach out and accept it tipping freely into the cupped palm of his hand.

•

Cas’s hands were always just a touch warmer than Dean’s, as if he idled a little fast, were running on a higher octane fuel, or maybe had a coolant leak. Dean tried not to worry about how this might indicate things about his health, or lifespan, especially considering that up until a few years ago they’d all been living on—not even _borrowed_ time; more like, outright _shoplifted_. So instead he mostly concentrated on taking full advantage of Cas’s thrumming warmth: stealing it under the covers when it was winter, melting into it whenever Cas wrapped some part of his body around any part of Dean’s.

The night before, when they’d gone for a swim, his skin had felt a little hotter against Dean’s even in the damp, balmy air. They walked out into the water palm to palm, fingers interlocked apparently just so Cas could haul him in deeper, Dean stumbling in the swash, tripping and nearly falling.

“What’s with the rush?” he huffed, struggling to stay upright as his feet sank down into soft sand with every step, wavelets now slapping at his thighs. Cas’s eyes were bright in the starlight and it was such a fucking cliché, too ridiculous for words, the kind of thing he’d die before he let Sam find out about it—but nightswimming was worth it, and now that the water was warm they found themselves out in the gulf almost every night, especially full moon.

“Get the swimming part over with faster, maybe,” suggested Cas, sounding a little evil; and in revenge Dean yanked back on his hand until Cas was the one who splashed forward, landing on his chest and, judging from the swift spitting which followed, taking on a mouthful of salt water. Dean fought back a laugh, because he was an asshole.

“Cas, no one’s making you swim,” he pointed out reasonably, as it got too deep to bother with walking and he slid out into the water, slipping into a slow breaststroke, keeping his head up. There wasn’t really surf at night; the gulf was more like a giant lake, peaceably lapping at the shore, and even the scratchy seaweed seemed calmer and better-behaved, or anyway less likely to wind up inside your board shorts.

(Which they weren’t wearing, because why bother. They’d left their clothes back up above the tide line—Cas’s thrown haphazardly, Dean’s vaguely folded—across a driftwood log.)

“But I’m not going to _want_ to swim, afterward, so we have to swim _now_ ,” Cas said, flipping over on his back and floating. Dean didn’t bother arguing because 1) they’d had the same unresolved argument every night for about a month now and 2) Cas’s ears were now underwater and his hearing wasn’t _that_ amazing. (Dean knew this because of having previously tested this theory by insulting him in loud Enochian, to no result.)

They bobbed for a few moments in silence, only the flap-flap of the waves and, from way over in the east, an occasional muted blast from the ferry horn. After a while Cas turned back over, facing the tide in an easy dog-paddle, shaking water out of his hair in a glittery double-arc. “Dean,” he said, using that tone of voice, the one that meant he was about to start something.

“Yeah,” said Dean absently, knowing he didn’t need to listen quite yet. They had reached the calm surfless trough between breakers, in just over their heads, and they weren’t so much swimming as hovering, suspended in and supported by all the water beneath them. The moon was low, not even first quarter. Those silvery fish whose names he didn’t know occasionally sprang up out of the water and slapped back down. Were they evading a predator? If they were, it was—probably something much larger than they were.

He opened his mouth to ask Cas, then realized he didn’t really want to know. “Yeah,” he said again, just in case he’d missed something, his hands slipping back and forth through the water in slow, lazy folds, just enough movement to stay buoyant.

“That’s right,” Cas said, very seriously, and Dean wondered what he’d just agreed to. “But I don’t know if you’ll ever believe me.”

It was weird how darkness washed the color out of everything; Cas’s eyes were almost black, the water was charcoal, the sky was kind of a burnt-out navy. In the absence of artificial lighting, you could see those pinprick-tiny stars you normally couldn’t, and the whole creamy sweep of the Milky Way, so bright it almost cast its own shadow. The Pleasure Pier was vaguely pastel in the misty distance, way out past Cas’s head.

Dean wiped spray off his face with one hand and swam closer to Cas, looking at his mouth, the curve of his jawline, sharply shadowed in the darkness.

“I mean, of course, I totally believe you. Just maybe if you could, um, say that again, what it is I’m—”

Cas snorted and splashed at him, but only as punctuation, not seriously trying to get water in his face. They’d done the mock-wrestling-while-swimming thing exactly once and it had ended with Dean swallowing…rather more of the gulf than he was entirely comfortable with; so Cas tended to be a little more overly cautious than he needed to be, now, when pretending to drown his boyfriend. “You weren’t listening.”

“It’s because you’re so good-looking. And I wasn’t _not_ listening,” Dean tried, which, nice effort there. But it wasn’t any use trying to get the sheepish look off his face when Cas could see in the dark as well as a cat.

“Oh my god,” Cas said, but without any bite to it, a verbal tic Dean thought he must have picked up from either Charlie or Avery. “That was terrible. Come here.”

They circled slowly around each other in the water, Dean still shying away, uneasy about what he’d missed. He kept his legs moving in a slow circle, just enough to stay afloat.

“All I was saying,” Cas continued patiently, reaching out for one of Dean’s hands, fingers wet and slender in his, a little gritty with sand, “was that I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you.”

Hold up; he’d missed something big. Dean swallowed. “Oh yeah?”

“Or because I didn’t _know_ I did,” Cas went on, frowning. “It wasn’t like that.” Dean noticed they were being slowly towed down along the beach out toward the point, what was it called—longshore current. The lights on East Beach Road were farther away, now.

“Sure,” he contributed weakly, trying to pay better attention, both to the drift and to what Cas had been saying. He retrieved his hand so he could keep paddling; worked backward through the conversation as he bobbed in place, reassembling sentences in his head. “You mean, uh. You mean when you left the—wait, you mean four _years_ ago? Dude, we’re, that was four _years_ ago. We’re good, alright? Let it go.”

“But I know it didn’t make sense, especially why I would start sleeping around,” Cas went on, to Dean’s increasing horror, apparently hellbent on confessing everything (sleeping _around_? there’d been an _around?_ ) and just as stubbornly fixated about having this particular conversation right here, right now, in the middle of the goddamned ocean. Another fish leapt up right behind them and Dean flinched; it made a silvery arc before belly-flopping back down, and didn’t that hurt, even if you were a fish? “My choices must have seemed so—stochastic, or maybe even self-destructive, and I know you were upset. But I couldn’t stay, because I was already in love with you, and I didn’t yet know if you would ever be able to—”

Okay, _what_. “The hell are you—just shut _up_ , okay,” Dean muttered, the last part of that against Cas’s lips, warm and rough and salt, his stubble scraping Dean’s cheek and their shins knocking together underwater.

The kiss went abruptly intense, the way they still tended to do, and Dean only let go of Cas’s mouth long enough to let him catch his breath, half on a laugh, and then he moved right back in again, Cas gripping Dean by the hips but for once just letting himself be kissed, letting Dean lick deep inside his mouth without trying to take control of it. Dean felt himself getting hard so fast it made everything behind his eyelids flare red. It turned out they could kiss for a really long time, even while Dean kept half-swimming, until he finally opened his eyes to check how far downshore they’d drifted and caught a glimpse of Cas’s eyelashes, wet and clumped together unevenly, fluttering open and that dazed soft look on his face, and suddenly they really needed to be on dry land.

“Stocha- _what_ now?” he asked, first, just to be difficult, pretending to brush something off Cas’s cheekbone but really just to have his hands somewhere on him.

Cas turned into the touch, kissed Dean’s palm. “Stochastic. It means random.”

“Well, you could just _say_ that. God, you’re the _worst_ ,” he said unconvincingly, wrapping Cas's arms around his neck, making sure he was hanging on, and then crawling at top speed for shore, not much helped by the tide, occasionally having to spit out water.

“You like me, though,” Cas said, cheek pressed against Dean’s shoulder; but he let Dean pull him in all the way until bodysurfing brought them too close to the shallows to keep swimming. Dean scrabbled for a second against the grit and then stood up, Cas’s hands still around his shoulders, until one dropped to trace a suggestive curve along his ass.

“Never said I didn’t,” he got out, and made it to the soft part of the cusp, where the sand was fluffy and dry above tideline, before Cas shoved him down. He grinned in the dark and went easily; rolled over and lay sprawled there, completely relaxed, arms stretched out and looking up at the sliver of a moon. He was thinking about sand being made out of tiny rocks and had almost forgotten why they came out of the water when he felt Cas crawl between his legs and lick delicately up the stripe of hair on his belly, over and over, which shouldn’t have felt as good as it did, then mouth at the join between hip and thigh. Dean let his breath hitch, and pushed his fingers into Cas’s hair, tangled and sandy and wet—and then his mouth closing over him and suddenly going down, too far down, but god, hot and taut and sweet and already, _shit_ , so good—

“— _stop_ ,” he choked, grabbing at Cas’s shoulders, “Jesus Christ, you’re gonna hurt your throat, you always, why are you always _like_ this—”

“I’m not,” Cas said, letting himself be pulled away, pausing to lift a hand to his mouth and drip saliva fall down into his palm in a glistening thread, which Dean knew he should probably find gross, but instead he watched mesmerized. Cas smiled down at him a little crookedly, weight held up on his left arm, droplets trickling down from his chest hair onto Dean’s collarbone and making him shiver. “I just wanted to get you _wet_.”

He said this last word directly into Dean’s ear, hoarse and filthy, closing his fist around him and oh there it was again already, slick and firm and just tight enough, flawless deliberate long pulls that made Dean’s eyes close and his thighs tremble. Why did Cas keep destroying him with handjobs, it wasn’t fair. “You’re so fucking _perfect_ ,” Cas said into his ear, “If I’d ever fucked you even once I couldn’t have left, I can’t leave ever, I _love_ doing this to you, I love everything on your face right now—”

Before Dean could throw up an arm to cover himself Cas had shifted his weight and pressed Dean’s shoulder back into the sand with his forearm, already pinning him down with one hip, strokes agonizingly teasing, flicking up over the head on every other pass.

Dean asked for something but he didn’t know what, brain already overloaded. In response Cas laughed, the throaty cruel one, and angled his grip subtly, sped up a little, then incrementally a tiny bit more, but barely, and Dean bit his lip in a hopeless effort to stay quiet because there were houses and _people_ somewhere; probably they were well away from the condos and not all the way yet to the park, but he— _fuck_. “Cas,” he said, voice scratchy, trying not to kick him. “Don’t—oh god, just—”

“You feel so good in my hand I could do this all night,” Cas admitted, licking water from the hollow of Dean’s throat; but then he immediately shifted from just this side of tortuously uneven into a firm sturdy rhythm that was also searingly fast and took Dean’s breath away completely, Cas’s hand tightening on every upstroke, and Dean was about to lose it so hard it was making him dizzy. He also wanted Cas inside him and this was new enough to be both confusing and urgent, he wanted to beg for it but still couldn’t.

Instead he gasped for air, hips moving on their own, those fucking traitorous tears springing into his eyes they way they kept doing, feeling something rise up inside him so overwhelming it made the back of his throat burn, something close to rage but weaker, something more like raw honey. “ _Fuck_ , Cas, why is it always so—why do you have to—”

“Because I love it,” Cas said, still in that strange low voice, the one pitched just for Dean’s ears. “I love watching you fall apart and knowing I did it, I’m _doing_ it, love the way your whole body shakes when I’m making you—yes, fuck _yes_ , _there_ it is, so good—because I love making you _come_ ,” whispered Castiel, eyes fixed intently on his, swallowing up the darkness; and on the last word Dean _did_ , turning his head to press his mouth against Cas’s shoulder, skin cool beneath his lips, trying desperately to strangle the sound in his chest, Cas’s other palm now wrapped carefully but firmly around Dean’s throat, his hips jerking up helpless into Cas’s hand, Cas milking every sweet pulse out of him, each one edged with a bone-rattling pleasure so deep it ached.

Dean couldn’t catch his breath, didn’t quite know where they were. Cas let him come down, kissing his hair, letting Dean pant against the muscles of his chest, holding him.

After a long time he heard the sound of the water. The dunes resolved themselves out of blurry shadows; then Cas let go of him carefully, one long slow final slippery throbbing pull. Dean blinked and swallowed and tried to inhale properly. The fuck had _that_ been? Both of Cas’s legs were between his; he could feel what he hadn’t been able to before, bony knees and hard shins and the wet coarse hair of Cas’s thighs rubbing between his. His dick gave a twitch like it was still interested and Dean mentally told it to shut up.

“You know I don’t care, right? About the crying,” said Cas, casually slinging come off his hand into the sawgrass, practical even in his sensuality. Dean started laughing and couldn’t stop until Cas licked the streak of saltwater off his temple, kissed him back into dewy hushed silence. He lay there for another long minute, just breathing.

“Yeah, but I do,” he said eventually, reaching down between Cas’s legs to catch at the satiny heat of his cock, feel the damp weight of it in his palm, curl his fingers around it, pull. Cas startled and muffled a whine against his chest, quivering. His nose was cold and damp against Dean’s breastbone but when he opened his mouth against the skin, the inside was wet and soft and hot, and it made something in Dean’s chest hurt.

“ _Bed_ ,” Cas said, on a shaky exhale, as Dean slid his fingers lower experimentally and started shifting downward in the sand, like maybe Cas wouldn’t notice if he just started blowing him.

Bed. Okay, fair. “That’s probably a good—shower first, though. Places you don’t want sand, trust me.”

“Why? Are you going to suck me, and finger me until I weep?” Dean closed his eyes again. The shit Cas would just _say_ , out loud, with his _mouth_ , like there wasn’t anything wrong with it.

But just like all the other times, the way it kept doing, over and over again with Cas, shame lost the war. Maybe someday it wouldn’t even show up to fight. As it was, all Dean could think about now was reaching up into the sleek silky heat of him, being the one who got to touch him and tease him and pull him apart from the inside out, getting to hold Cas against his bare chest and unravel him until he screamed.

•

And he’d choked up again, dammit, when they drove away; but at least Charlie had too.

As he put the Impala in gear and headed off a little blindly down Apffel Park Road toward town, the sting of it still in the back of his throat, Cas wisely not touching him, they passed Avery going the other way, riding high up in their 1972 Chevy pickup.

Dean raised his hand in goodbye and Avery nodded back and held up a couple fingers, a grin playing across their face. They seemed to be dressed up for dinner for Charlie; the blonde/sometimes purple/often green hair was pulled back neatly, and they were wearing a shirt with a collar. Dean watched their tail lights in the rearview mirror and wondered how much longer Charlie could keep insisting that she was a consultant.

“She’s a woman of many secrets, Celeste Middleton,” said Cas, almost under his breath, and Dean startled.

“You know her name?”

“I know _some_ of her names.”

They rounded the end of the road, swampy ponds on either side dotted with waterbirds, brown herons and lurid pink spoonbills wading in the shallows, picking up and setting down their feet with precision. Dean idled at the stop sign for a second before turning left down Seawall. At the light on Broadway, he kept straight, didn’t go right.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, I just—” He didn’t finish, and Cas didn’t ask again.

He pulled over at the first granite jetty, shoreline still mostly deserted except for sandpipers; the summer people hadn’t really showed up yet. It was a little cooler this evening, sun low in the sky, and Dean found a flannel shirt underneath the seat, holding it out to Cas, who got out of the car without taking it. Dean shrugged and pulled it on.

They darted across Seawall between cars; by the time Dean got across, Cas was already halfway down the jetty, hair whipping every which way, seaspray shooting in white spumes up between the blocks.

Dean picked his way down, slipping a little, the jetty’s granite wet and uneven. On either side he could see rip currents churning, towing yellowed foam and ragged clumps of seaweed along with them, down back fast into deep water. He wasn’t even sure what purpose the jetties served; stopping erosion, maybe, somehow? They sure weren’t any use during storm surges, and they just seemed like drowning hazards for tourists.

He and Cas both got to the end about the same time, somehow. Cas stood swaying in the wind at the farthest point, eyes glinting like an osprey’s, poised on the balls of his feet, leaning right out over the water, and Dean wanted to touch him, to pull him back, but didn’t. This wasn’t about him. He felt glad nonetheless that Cas was wearing hiking boots.

After what felt like a long time, Cas stretched his hand behind him without looking, and Dean took it. He always would, and Cas knew that. He wished he had the same trust. He was trying to learn it.

“There’s a thing you can do,” he heard himself saying, raising his voice over the surf, and Cas turned his head a little, listening, not looking away from the water. Far out in the Gulf, half-hidden in rising fog, the lights off the Russian tankers blinked pale green.

“If you want to come back to a place. It’s something...just, some people do it.” He fumbled in his front jeans pocket for a second; dug out a quarter, pressed it into Cas’s palm.

Cas looked down at it like he’d never seen money before. Dean stood a little closer so he didn’t have to shout to be heard. “When you want to make sure you come back to a place, you leave money somewhere, a coin. You hide it.”

Cas turned the quarter over with his fingers. “A superstition.”

“Yeah, pretty much. Maybe it goes back to when there wasn’t that much money floating around, I don’t know.”

“So you would be sure to return, to retrieve it? Something valuable.”

“I guess. But now it’s just a thing you do.” Dean had left more than one coin in more than one place, as a kid, mostly places he’d now forgotten. It was magic, actually, and like most magic, it made intuitive sense if you thought about it for even a second. Money just meant something you’d worked for, something made out of your energy, yourself. You always left part of yourself in any place you loved, and so you’d always be drawn back toward it.

Cas dropped to a crouch and slotted the coin in between two of the rough chunks of granite, getting wet as water sloshed up over the rocks and soaked the legs of his jeans. Dean reached down to help hoist him upright again, grabbing him around the bicep without even thinking. Not pulling away, Cas turned into the movement and wound his arms around Dean’s neck, sighing. “So now we’ll definitely come back.”

Cas’s face was wet, with spray or—Dean brushed numb fingers across his cheekbones. “Yeah we will. Babe, you _live_ here. We’ll always come back.”

They stood there a few minutes longer, Dean’s ears getting cold, the sticky fog closing in on the shore and streetlights winking on one by one. Finally Cas tugged at his hand, and they worked their way back up the jetty, Cas clutching at him once when he slid and nearly went down.

Inside Baby, he wiped off his face with the hem of his shirt, started her up and reached up to shift out of park.

“Hey,” said Cas, voice hushed.

Dean turned to see him, slouched against the passenger door, hair dripping, jeans getting the seat damp and his heart flipped over with a lurch not unlike nausea. All the years he’d wanted Cas there, right the fuck _there_ , and now he was there. Was here. Was, somehow, miraculously, his. Don’t you have it, what you want, _don’t you already have it._ Maybe. Maybe. _Probably?_ Definitely.

They looked at each other for a long moment. Cas smiled at him, eyes brimming, not even trying to hide anything, all of it right there on his face, shining, open.

“Thank you, Dean.”

Dean nodded, speechless with love.

“Now please take me the fuck home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this through to its bittersweet end; I’m so blushy that you’ve come this far and stayed so long.
> 
> A huge fervent hug to everyone who donated and/or shared my request for support during Harvey. The island (for once, this time anyway) got _extremely_ lucky; the worst thing to happen for us was the Whataburger sign blowing down (while the Whataburger stayed open, because Texas). But Houston got fucking hammered, and the people you helped really needed it, so thank you for your generosity and kindness.
> 
> Much gratitude to to my fabulous and extremely cute betas, [ExpatGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl), [sarcasticbones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasticbones), and [shiphitsthefan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiphitsthefan); also I owe a debt to [catchclaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catchclaw) and [seperis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seperis), whose beautiful (and quite frankly, far superior) versions of Castiel I remixed without mercy. In particular I’m never going to stop pimping the former’s “Still Life,” which is an utterly gorgeous short story you should drop everything to go read.
> 
> [Arlan's](https://galveston.arlansmarket.com) is a few blocks from my house; it’s even more classy than I've made it sound, and the cherry jam is stupidly expensive (but really good). Mardi Gras is _way_ more all-consuming than I’ve been able to describe—the entire island turns into purple/gold/green strings of beads and tinsel and fairy lights. Tragically, East Beach isn’t quite as depicted, mostly because it got flattened during Ike in 2008 and has been completely rebuilt since then; Cas couldn’t afford a place out there now, not even on a hundred vet tech salaries.
> 
> But the Gulf itself persists, filthy, brown, and warm, like swimming in a teacup. I love it more than words can wield the matter. If you’re in the neighborhood let me know and we’ll get cupcakes, go walk on the beach together, visit the Pink Dolphin Monument, and talk about how a stupid harrowed hunter finally got his act together enough to get with a stupid fallen seraph.
> 
> You can always find me on tumblr and usually on twitter.
> 
> Finally, thanks to ExpatGirl’s kindness and talent, [here is a charming and conveniently rebloggable picspam](https://bert-and-ernie-are-gay.tumblr.com/post/165951160086/freestyle).
> 
> And thank you all again for coming to this weird little party, which has somehow lasted for three summers—I’ll miss these two idiots, but more than that? I’ll miss all y’all. ♥


End file.
